General Considerations on the Possible Legal and Factual Consequences of the Use of Artificial Intelligence on EU Competition Policy
General Considerations on the Possible Legal and Factual Consequences of the Use of Artificial Intelligence on EU Competition Policy

Summary/Abstract: One of the main policies of the European Union and, according to authors such as Ernst B. Haas, one of the fundamental reasons for its creation and existence, is competition policy. This is because the American legal-economic model of market functioning, centered on free, decartelized competition, was exported with the American influence on Western Europe through the work of the occupation authorities and the conditionality regime associated with Marshall Plan aid, and taken over into both the primary and secondary law of the Communities (and subsequently the European Union) and the domestic law of the Member States, influencing national competition policies. And after the fall of the communist regimes, with the transition of the Eastern European countries to a market economy and a democratic, pluralist political system, the same model entered their legislation, both horizontally, through legislative transplantation, and vertically, through the incorporation of EU rules into national legal systems. Today, however, with the emergence and proliferation of artificial intelligence, the legal model which has been the basis for preventing and combating anti-competitive conduct is under existential pressure. Since the solutions offered by artificial intelligence are, in the case of the most powerful ones, difficult and costly to implement, they are accessible only to economic operators that already have a significant market share. Given the competitive advantages associated with the use of artificial intelligence, these economic operators could adopt conduct and acquire positions in the market which could distort competition by using procedures which are not covered by the current range of acts and deeds which constitute an infringement of free competition. As a result, the very substance of national and EU competition policies may be catastrophically disrupted. It is precisely these possible disruptions that are the subject of the study that we will now submit to your attention.

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